Ghetto-fabulous: Naples

SPRING BREAK 2013 (Florence, Rome, Naples)
NAPLES:
They warned us about this place...

After a long week of early rises, late nights, and days packed with sight seeing we were exhausted. So we took the first day in Naples to relax and regain our strength. We ferried on hour off the coast of Naples to the Italian island of Capri. The beaches are not sandy but rather naturally composed of white stones. It is not the kind of beach one enjoys walking barefoot across but we had no problem laying down and sun bathing all day. We didn't even make it a mile away from the ferry dock before choosing our beach spot to chill for the afternoon. It was glorious.

The next day we woke up early once again and took the train to Pompeii...

Plaster mold of the vacancies found in the earth from where Vesuvius trapped  many lives. 

After walking through the massive sight for over four hours we had to leave before seeing everything and head off to Herculaneum, the other city that was extinguished from the Vesuvius explosion that very same day. Herculaneum is much much smaller but also better preserved because only the hot ash settled onto it, not the burning explosive rock and lava that struck down on Pompeii. These buildings still had sharp corners and roofs while at Pompeii the whole top layer of the city's building had been burned away.

Next came my favorite part of the day, hiking to the hop of Mount Vesuvius. When we reached the top I learned that this volcano had exploded relatively recently as well in the 1940s. Freaky stuff seeing as we could still see smoke rising out of the volcano's mouth. 

Memorial to all who lost their lives at the hands of Vesuvius. 

The next day we spent exploring around the actual city of Naples. The picture below pretty much sums up the city: graffiti, young people, and forgotten statues.

Siting on the edge of the Castel dell' Ovo

Looking down from the edge of the Castel dell' Ovo

Statue eyes freak me out. 

Then we went to the oldest aquarium in the world! I thought it was going to be huge and magnificent but then we got there and the building was relatively small as were the tanks inside. This makes sense though seeing as it was the first aquarium in the world.